Broken Stiletto: Command And Control Of The Joint Task Force During Operation Eagle Claw At Desert One

by Major William C. Flynt III

This monograph examines Operation Eagle Claw, the attempt to rescue the American hostages held in Iran, for planning considerations pertinent to similar operations. It focusses specifically on the principle of war Unity of Command as a command and control imperative for a Joint Task Force composed of multiple services, organizations, and agencies.

To great extent Operation Eagle Claw’s history may parallel the characteristics of contingencies facing today’s Armed Forces. An unexpected crisis erupts, intense media coverage thrusts it before domestic and international audiences, a Joint Task Force is formed of all U.S. services, and a military operation is launched to protect and further American interests abroad. Because of the potential similarity between Operation Eagle Claw and future crisis situations, the operation’s command and control aspects are relevant for today’s planners to study.

Operation Eagle Claw failed. The failure can be directly attributed to a failure of leadership in ensuring Unity of Command. Although a dangerous and difficult mission, the operation’s undoing was not the impossible nature of the task assigned to the force, nor an unfortunate measure of “bad luck.” The failure of Operation Eagle Claw was preventable given strong leadership and a cohesive rescue force. These qualities were lacking, and the absence of Unity of Command was ultimately the causal reason for the operation’s many difficulties.

91 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 6, 2015

Reviews

[Jeffrey Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Major Flynt gives a good basic review of the events that happened at Desert One in April 1980, asks a few good questions, but really doesn't delve too deeply in the subject matter. Essentially, this was not much more than a basic summary of the Kyle and Beckwith books and the Holloway Report.

Flynt begins by discussing the mission's command structure at the national level, which the Holloway Report praised, then uses that to show the failures of the planning of the operation with the lack of unified command structure. The problem with Flynt's analysis is that because of the failure at Desert One, the entire mission was aborted. Therefore, we will never know how well or badly the rest of the plan was. He cites Beckwith as being the overall commander in Tehran while asking the question about how Beckwith could manage. He also chided Beckwith's idea of doing a personal reconnaissance as commander while in Tehran. Again, without having executed that phase of the mission, we will never know whether it would be a success or not. That means half of Flynt's analysis was a moot point since that never happened since the mission got scrubbed earlier. That part was not a failure.

He does look at the operational details of what did go wrong at Desert One in both the planning and the execution phases. This is the biggest redeeming quality to his analysis. But just when you are getting into the analysis and begin asking questions and want to read more, it ends abruptly.

I could have just read Kyle's and Beckwith's books, the Holloway Report, as well as Gary Sick's book "All Fall Down" (which is cited several times in the notes but failed to make it into the bibliography, drawn my own conclusions, and gotten more value out of it. I was disappointed, to say the least.

[David Cuatt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very thorough look at what went wrong with USA's attempt
at rescuing hostages being held in Iran. A wide variety of factors
contributed to the disastrous results with loss of life and equipment
and all are examined in detail. Might be a tough read for people unfamiliar
with military terminology, but I found it enlightening.